


Mystery Next-Door

by waitineedaname



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Childhood Friends, F/F, Flowers, Sleepovers, Small Towns, Stargazing, cheesy tropes abound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitineedaname/pseuds/waitineedaname
Summary: It was a horrible cliche, and Rose had long since gone through all the stages of grief upon realizing she’d fallen into the cheesiest romantic trope fathomable. Jade Harley was the mystery next-door, and Rose was immediately fascinated.
Relationships: Jade Harley/Rose Lalonde, John Egbert & Jade Harley & Rose Lalonde & Dave Strider
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	Mystery Next-Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earthseaBorealis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseaBorealis/gifts).



> this was written for the homestuck secret santa project on tumblr!! I went with the prompt "jaderose" and "small town" and for some reason my brain went apeshit with the idea of childhood friends. enjoy!

Jade Harley was the mystery next-door. 

She moved in on a crisp, cloudy November day with a multitude of overstuffed boxes, an older man with a moustache, and a large white dog. 

Rose Lalonde was immediately fascinated.

Like any curious six year old, she asked her mother a million and one questions. Who were they? Would their dog eat Jaspers? Why does she live with her grandfather and not her parents? 

Her mother, nursing a migraine, answered to the best of her ability. They're the Harleys, hun. I don't think their dog is going to eat Jaspers. I don't know why she lives with her grandpa. Why don't you go play with John and let mommy take a nap?

Rose put on her sneakers -- a point of pride that she could do it herself and John couldn't, even though they were the same age -- and left the house to give her mom some peace and quiet. She did not, however, turn in the direction of the Egbert house at the end of the block. Instead, she turned right and marched right up to the Harleys' front door.

With all the grown-up politeness she could muster, she rang their doorbell and waited. Behind the door, she heard a bright voice yell "I'll get it!" followed by the stomping of a child barreling down the stairs. In an instant, the door opened to reveal a young girl with a mess of dark hair and thick glasses.

"Hello," Rose said, attempting to put on the tone she heard her mother use when she had to be professional. "I'm Rose Lalonde. I live next-door."

The girl's mouth made a tiny "o" then split into a big grin. "Hi Rose! I'm Jade!"

Rose suddenly realized she had not planned this far ahead. "Um. Do you want to come out and play?"

"Yeah!" Jade's glee was evident. She turned to shout inside the house. "Grandpa! I'm going to play outside!"

"Bring Becquerel with you!" came her grandfather's answering shout. Jade giggled and stuck her fingers in her mouth to let out a sharp whistle. Rose blanched as she heard the clacking of claws as the large white dog she'd seen when they moved in came charging at Jade, bowling her to the ground. Jade shrieked with laughter, hugging the dog around its neck as he licked all over her face.

"Bec! No! Sit!" She laughed, eventually squirming out from underneath the dog. "Do you wanna pet him?" She asked, mistaking Rose's wide eyes for excitement instead of mild panic.

"...Does he bite?" Rose asked hesitantly. 

"No! He's a very good boy. Right, Bec?" Bec let out a deafening bark in response.

Filled with too much pride and curiosity to back down now, Rose outstretched a hand towards Bec. He sniffed her curiously, then licked her palm, startling a laugh out of her. Rose satisfied herself with a few pets behind his ears, then stepped back.

"Come on." Rose said, gesturing for Jade to follow her. "I'll show you the creek."

\--

The creek was a staple of Rose's childhood. She and John had discovered it just outside their neighborhood on one of their first excursions together. It was just removed enough to give them the giddy feeling of freedom that rowdy children crave, while still being within shouting distance of their parents. It had been their place for years, and from the moment Jade first visited it with Rose, it was her place too. 

Jade was incorporated into their group immediately, morphing their duo into a trio with little fuss, and now that they were eight and all thick as thieves, it was hard to remember a time when she wasn't around.

The creek was the site of countless formative moments for the three of them. It was where Jade lost her first baby tooth. It was where John learned what poison ivy was. And it was where Rose realized her first crush.

It was a warm August evening, one of the few left of summer before they'd have to go back to school. Fireflies were lighting up the trees around them, and Jade had decided they should hunt for frogs.

Jade was far better at that kind of thing than John and Rose. Before her, most of their trips to the creek involved pretending to be wizards or Ghostbusters, balancing on the dryer rocks and pretending to blast each other with sticks. Jade was the one to introduce them to a brand new form of playtime found in collecting fireflies in their palms and chasing after lizards until they were out of breath and learning how to climb trees.

As expected, Jade managed to find twice as many frogs as them. Each pocket of her overalls gently cradled a frog, and her hands were slimy from all the ones she'd caught and let free. John had caught two, but they had both jumped out of his hands when he'd squealed with laughter at the cold feeling they left on his palms.

Rose had yet to catch a single one, and quite frankly, she was getting a little frustrated. 

“I dunno Rose, I think they must just have something against you.” John teased when the fifth frog in three minutes hopped out of her reach. She sent him a glare, and he grinned at her, full of playful meanness built on a friendship formed in toddlerhood. 

“How about I catch one for you?” Jade offered.

“I don’t need a pity frog.” Rose protested, but Jade was already splashing towards one of the banks of the creek. “Really, I don’t mind. Who am I to steal a hapless amphibian from his watery home? If he wants to continue his boring existence behind an algae-ridden rock, that’s his prerogative. In fact, I’m probably better off than you two because I’m not risking infecting my hands with a million frog diseases.”

“‘Bluh, I’m Rose and I read the thesaurus for fun and I think frogs are gross.’” John mimicked, pitching his voice up even though Rose was fairly certain his voice was already higher than hers. She huffed, and both John and Jade snickered. John plopped down in the mud on the side of the creek and started poking around for interesting rocks buried in the muck, and Rose contemplated joining him before Jade cried out in victory a few feet down.

“Got one!” Jade held her loosely clasped hands up and dashed back over to them as quickly as she could without slipping. “Okay, hold your hands like a little cup.” She instructed Rose.

Rose obliged, and Jade slid the frog into Rose’s waiting hands, quickly putting her own hands around Rose’s to guide her in closing her hands just enough to keep the frog from jumping out without crushing it in the process. Rose stared down at the creature peeking out between her thumbs, mystified. It wasn’t necessarily holding the frog that was getting to her, though the feeling of its rapid heartbeat against her palm was exciting. It was the realization that Jade had caught this frog specifically as a gift for her, and it was the feeling of Jade’s warm, dirt-covered hands wrapped around her own. It was looking up at Jade’s face and seeing her proud, buck-toothed grin, and it was the twigs that had inexplicably found their way into Jade’s curls, and it was the fireflies and dusk light painting flickering colors on Jade’s cheeks.

Rose’s heart leaped into her throat, and she suddenly found it harder to breathe.

In the exact same instant, the frog took advantage of her lapse in focus and took a leap of its own. The sudden movement startled Rose, and she yelped, stumbling backwards. Her foot skidded on the stone behind her, and she let out a sharp scream as she fell into the creekbed.

“Rose!” John and Jade shouted in unison, scrambling to help her up. They both took her by the upper arms and helped her to her feet, and she cried out in pain when the bruise rapidly forming on her hip made it hurt to stand. Her elbows were scraped from catching her fall, and the tears filling her eyes made her more pissed off than anything else. She wasn’t a little kid, she shouldn’t be crying about falling over anymore.

“I’ll get her mom!” John said, already sprinting in the direction of their houses, shouting, “Ms. Lalonde, Ms. Lalonde!”

“Do you want me to help you walk?” Jade offered gently. Rose sucked in a breath and willed the tears back into their ducts. She nodded and Jade wrapped her arm around Rose’s shoulders, guiding her out of the creek.

The bruise hurt like the dickens for the rest of the week, and her mother tsked when she saw the grime in her scrapes, but for a reason Rose couldn’t quite fathom, it was all made okay by Jade’s arm wrapped tight around her.

\--

“I dunno Rosie, should I be worried about you goin’ to a sleepover with a boy?”

“Please, mother,” Rose rolled her eyes when she knew her mom couldn’t see them, emptying her backpack onto her bed, “It’s John. He doesn’t count.”

“Hm.” Her mother hummed a vague agreement from where she was leaning against Rose’s door frame. Rose knew her concerns about the sleepover were largely performative; she’d slept over at the Egbert house dozens of times before. “Isn’t that other boy going to be there? David or something?”

“Dave?” Rose scoffed, shoving pajamas into her bag. “As if I’d sink that low.”

“Aw, that’s mean.” She heard her mother sniff, and there was a beat of silence that Rose used to debate whether or not to bring any books. “I guess that just leaves Jade.”

Rose’s head snapped over to look at her for the first time in the conversation. She hadn’t mentioned her crush on Jade once in the four years she’d had it, and her mother hadn’t ever asked about it beyond superficial questions about whether she liked anyone at school. Despite that, there was inexplicably sharp look in her mother’s eyes, like she knew more than she was telling. She lifted her perfectly painted lips in a slight smile, then pushed herself upright off the door frame.

“Make sure to pack a toothbrush, okay sweetie?” She said, already halfway down the hall. Rose stared after her, speechless for a moment, then shook herself out of her stupor. She finished packing in a rush, and left with a farewell shout over her shoulder.

The walk to the Egbert house was one that Rose knew better than any other path, except perhaps the walk from her bedroom to the bathroom. She’d been playing at his house since before she could draw on a definite memory, and she and Jade had been sleeping over since their families had deemed them old enough. The only new player in their routine was Dave, who’d showed up at their middle school in sixth grade and immediately attached to John like glue, which of course meant getting attached to Rose and Jade in the process. The three of them were a package deal, and he was fortunate enough to be the right variety of awkwardly charming to fit right in.

Mr. Egbert was happy to host John’s friends, as always, and he was just as eager to embarrass him as well. As soon as they were all settled, he insisted on pulling out the photo albums under the excuse that it was Dave’s first time staying over, so he had to see them.

_ “Dad,” _ John complained, weakly trying to tug the photo album away from his father, “They don’t want to see that, come on. We’re just gonna go upstairs and watch movies, right guys?” He looked at his friends, hoping they’d back him up. He was immediately disappointed.

“I’d love to see baby pictures, thank you Mr. Egbert.” Rose said, smirking at John.

“Yeah, come on dude, Shrek can wait, I gotta catch a peep at these incriminatin’ pics.” Dave added immediately. “Who knows the next time I’ll get to see ‘em. Your whole house could burn down tomorrow, and I’d never have seen the dang things. I could spontaneously go blind in like three minutes and I’d be like ‘god, screw the Mona Lisa and sunsets, the thing I miss the most is being able to see my goober of a friend lookin’ even more like a goober because his brain was the size of a softball and he didn’t have the self awareness to know not to eat his own feet.’ All I’m saying, bro, is you gotta cherish your sight when you’ve still got it, y’feel me?”

“Oh! Mr. Egbert, you should show Dave that picture of John with the shaving cream!” Jade suggested helpfully.

“Yes, you absolutely should show me that one, oh my god, that was the best string of words you could possibly put together.” Dave was all but vibrating with restrained delight. John wailed dramatically and flopped backwards onto the couch.

“You’re all the worst. Sleepover cancelled, you can all go home. I hate you all.” He complained, face buried in his hands.

“We do this because we love you.” Rose said, patting his knee condescendingly. He slid his fingers off half of his glasses to glare at her. She considered laying the condescension on thicker, but she was interrupted by an outburst from Dave’s direction.

“Oh shi- shoot -- sorry Mr. E -- Rose, you’re in one of these.”

“What?” Rose squeezed in between Jade and Dave and discovered, to her horror, a picture of herself and John. Neither of them were any older than three, and they seemed to have raided each other’s dress-up chests. John was wearing an enormous grin and a tutu that Rose vaguely remembered her mother buying her when she was quite young, and Rose had donned a clip-on tie and was drowning in what she could only guess were Mr. Egbert’s shoes. She gaped in horror, and Dave laughed next to her. 

“Dude, look at you! Rose Lalonde: Business Toddler.” Dave shoved her playfully, and Rose felt she suddenly understood Cain when she pushed him back hard enough to make him stumble.

"I think you look cute!" Jade said, peering over Rose's shoulder. Embarrassment blended with flattery to create a smoothie of confusion in Rose's brain.

"Are we done?" John complained, still doing his best to merge with the couch cushions. His dad chuckled and nodded, shutting the photo album and waving them off. That was all the encouragement John needed to jump to his feet and practically teleport up the stairs, his friends hot on his heels.

Their attempt to marathon Shrek was mostly an excuse to hang out, and it made a pleasant backdrop to whatever shenaniganry they wanted to get up to that evening, which ranged from breaking out the nail polish Rose had swiped from her mother's stash to a slightly ridiculous game of would-you-rather. The evening passed in a happy rush and before Rose knew it, the moon was high in the sky and they were all snuggled into their sleeping bags. 

John was snoring gently, his hands stuck out of the sleeping bag because he'd been worried about smudging Rose's handiwork on his nails. Dave was the quietest any of them had ever heard him and still as a statue. Rose, however, couldn't get comfortable. She rolled and shifted and shoved her arm under her pillow and attempted to curl into a ball. No dice.

She was beginning to consider abandoning her sleeping bag to sleep in John's bed and deal with his bitching in the morning, but Jade's sleepy whisper stopped her.

"Rose?" She mumbled. Rose went still. "Are you still awake?"

"Unfortunately." Rose muttered back. "Sorry if I woke you."

"Mn, it's okay. I wasn't asleep." The grogginess in her voice made Rose suspect she might be lying, but she didn't call her on it. There was shuffling from Jade's direction, and Rose looked up to see Jade crawling out of her bag and grabbing her glasses. "Do you wanna go get some water?"

"...Sure." It wasn't like she was having any success languishing in her sleeping bag. Rose wiggled free of her plasticky cocoon, and the two padded out of the room as quietly as they could manage.

No matter how familiar the house was, Rose found that it always seemed different when all the lights were off and everyone was asleep. Not eerie like her ostentatiously decorated house or Jade's drafty old home -- she doubted the Egbert house could seem anything but homey -- but still strange, like she'd stepped into another dimension just by being up at an odd hour. 

They filled up their glasses with water -- Jade laughing when Rose accidentally closed the cabinets loudly and grimaced -- and then Jade was tugging her towards the door. 

"Come on. Let's look at the stars!" How could Rose say no to a request like that? Jade chose a spot in the grass with an amusing level of concentration, and she tugged Rose down to sit with her. Rose tried to give her a respectable amount of personal space, but Jade squished against her side immediately. Rose prayed the dim light from the moon hid her blush, but Jade wasn't paying attention, eyes on the sky.

"How much do you know about astronomy?" Jade asked, tone serious despite the contentedness on her face.

"I know the basics of what we learned in science class, and the names of a few constellations. Ursa major and minor, Orion, Sagittarius…" Rose trailed off. "I'm afraid I don't know where they are in the sky, though."

Jade hummed and tucked her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her Squiddles-patterned pants and smiling up at the sky. "Grandpa bought me an astronomy book for kids for my sixth birthday. I read it all in one day and then insisted we go to the library so I could check out as many books about it as possible. I ended up reading books as big as I was," she said with a laugh. Rose snorted. She could imagine it so clearly: tiny little Jade, nose buried in a book about astrophysics.

"Well?" Rose challenged. "Share your knowledge, o scholar of the cosmos."

Jade giggled and studied the sky for a moment. She pointed first at a string of stars low in the sky. "That's Orion. You can tell by the three stars there, see? That's his belt. And over there is Monoceros, the unicorn."

Rose squinted in the direction Jade's finger pointed, but she couldn't see much other than Orion's belt. "How did the ancient Greeks come up with these names? A unicorn seems like something of a stretch."

Jade shrugged. "I don't know. It must have held some kind of meaning to them." She lifted her chin off her knees and instead laid her head on Rose's shoulder. "I think it's kind of amazing, really. I mean, they are just stars, billions of miles apart, but they looked into the sky and found something important to them. Don't you think that's beautiful?"

Rose took great care in keeping her breath even and not flinching away from how close Jade was. She pretended she was talking about the stars above her and not the ones she spied reflecting off Jade's glasses when she murmured, "Yes, very beautiful."

The soft smile that great on Jade's face made her suspect that maybe she knew what Rose meant anyway.

When they finally climbed the stairs back to the bedroom and whispered their goodnights, Rose fell asleep with stars under her eyelids.

\--

Jade was the girl next-door, and Rose was hopelessly in love with her. It was a horrible cliche, and Rose had long since gone through all the stages of grief upon realizing she’d fallen into the cheesiest romantic trope fathomable. She’d been in the acceptance stage for a long time, if “acceptance” were synonymous with “resigning oneself to pining for years.” But dammit, Rose was sick of pining, and she was sick of trying to hide her crush. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed advice.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Eight goddamn years?”

Maybe she should’ve gone to someone else for advice.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” Dave said, as if his shiteating grin weren’t just as bad. “God, I just need to savor this moment. You always tried to act like I was the mess in our group, but the whole time it’s been you.”

“Oh please, do not act like you aren’t guilty of your own pining.”

“Nuh-uh, nope, we’re not bringing this back around to me. We’re focusing on you bein’ a fucking disaster. Oh my god, you’re a disaster lesbian, how am I just now realizing this.” He leaned on the steering wheel of his car, holding back giggles.

Rose picked up a fry from the center console and hit his forehead with deadly accuracy. “If you continue to mock me without any attempt to help, I swear to every unholy deity ever fathomed by the human mind, I will dump this milkshake on your lap and send a picture to Karkat.”

“What? No, come on, that’s such an overreaction.” He said, leaning out of reach.

“There’s no such thing as an overreaction to you breaking the rules of our Burger King sessions.”

“Our Burger King sess- Bro, what? There have never been any fucking rules. These fast food seshes started ‘cause you got a goddamn coupon and I’m the only chump you know with a car. They just turned into a warped form of cheap therapy because you’re  _ you _ . I don’t  _ have  _ to solve this.” 

Rose took the lid off her milkshake.

“Okay, jesus, I’ll help.” Dave tucked his legs up and leaned even further away.

“Thank you. How gentlemanly.” She calmly slid the lid back on her shake and took a sip from it.

“Yeah, you know me, all kinds of fuckin’ chivalrous. Always opening doors and helping blind ladies cross the street and giving disaster lesbians tips on how to deal with a crush they’ve had for almost a literal decade because clearly I’m the guy that can give advice on how to ask girls out even though I’ve literally never had a girlfriend, like what the hell’s up with that-”

“Dave.”

“Right, got it.” He sobered out of his ramble and grabbed a fistful of fries to eat while he thought. “What exactly are you askin’ me for?”

“Please, Strider. Use your brain. I know that might be a tall order considering the likelihood that it has lain dormant and collecting dust since the last time you used it for anything other than video games and inane comics, but even you must have some modicum of sense buried within your subconscious.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a real great job making me want to help.” She could tell he was rolling his eyes behind his shades, and it took all her willpower not to throw another fry at him. “Look, I say just tell her. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could look me dead in the eyes and tell me she hates me with every fiber of her being. She has simply been pretending to like me for the past several years, but unfortunately, she finds my personality draining. In fact, spending any prolonged amount of time with me makes her feel like her soul is developing necrosis, and she has already filed a restraining order. I resign myself to packing my bags and moving to the coldest corner of Alaska to live out the rest of my days in complete isolation, feasting on the flesh of moose who, similarly, I destroy from the inside out by simply existing in close proximity with them.” Rose answered immediately. Dave stared at her blankly.

“That was insane. You do realize how fucking batshit you sound right now, right? Jesus christ, Rose, she’s not going to hate you, she’s Jade. I know you’re like physically incapable of doing so, but take the melodrama down a notch for a second, okay?”

“You asked for the worst.” 

“Yeah, and I was expecting shit like ‘rejection,’ but that was way too specific for you to have not thought that exact line of thought before, which, quite frankly, is terrifying.”

Rose shrugged. “It’s not my fault you didn’t know what you were asking for. Really, you should have expected as much.”

“I guess I should’ve, huh. Fucking hell.” He shook his head tiredly and pushed his shades up to rub his eyes. "Alright, I'll tell you what the worst case scenario is. Like you're playin' a dating sim and you've been fucking ruling at this game so far, but then you say one wrong thing and get the bad ending, that's what we're going for. Bad ending in this situation is she just says she doesn't like you like that. It'll probably be awkward for a while, but y'all are best friends, it'll smooth over. And if you  _ don't  _ tell her, you'll just be stuck like this, hoping something'll change even though nothing will. You'll never know what would've happened if you had just gone for it, and I know you, Rose. I know you don't like not knowing shit."

"And how do you suggest I go about this?" She said. What he said made sense, but she wasn't going to let him know that.

“Hell if I know. That’s the extent of my wisdom, take it or leave it.” He shrugged. “Just talk to her, dude. Y’all talk all the time. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a way to bring it up.”

It wasn’t as easy as Dave made it out to be. Maybe if she were someone else, she could just go through with it, but she was Rose Lalonde. It was in her nature to spiral at least three times before arriving at a more convoluted solution.

It was a painful month of pointed looks from Dave before she finally struck up the courage to do something about the feelings she’d be storing tight in her chest for so long. Honestly, what was a measly month compared to the eight years that had already passed?

The day was the special kind of sunny that followed a rainstorm, and Rose found herself wishing she still had the confidence of a six year old as she marched up to the Harleys’ front door. The doorbell’s chime echoed inside the house, and the door opened to reveal a familiar face, though not the one she’d expected.

“Ah! The young Miss Lalonde.” Jade’s grandfather smiled, jolly and charming as ever.

“Hello, Mr. Harley. I was hoping to see Jade.” 

“She’s in the garden.” He waved her inside, and she followed him through the winding house. “I thought you kids -- what’s the word -- instant messaged about these things. What with your newfangled cell devices.”

Rose had to bite her tongue to keep herself from calling him out for pretending to be less knowledgeable than he was -- she  _ knew  _ he used to run a technology company, he wasn’t fooling anyone -- but now wasn’t the time. “I wanted to surprise her. What’s the point of living next-door to your best friend if you can’t show up unannounced to disrupt her plans?”

That earned her a hearty guffaw. “Well, who am I to step in between such gestures of best friendship.” His eyes twinkled knowingly. “My little Jadelet talks about you all the time, you know.”

“Does she now.” Rose said, carefully neutral.

“Oh, yes. You should have heard the girl when she was little. It was ‘Rose, Rose, Rose’ all the time.” He winked, then opened the back door for her. “She’s out there.”

Rose thanked him awkwardly, then made her way to the garden. Jade was in the middle of her plot of absolutely mammoth sunflowers, deadheading and inspecting them with a look of concentration on her face. The moment she saw Rose, though, a huge grin broke out on her face.

“Rose!” Jade ran over to her, and Rose was relieved she’d put down the pruning shears before grabbing her in a tight hug. 

“Hello Jade.” Rose hugged her back and resisted the urge to bury her face in Jade’s hair and just stay there. “Sorry for coming over without warning.”

“No, it’s okay! I’m almost done gardening anyway. I was planting some bulbs for spring.” She said, guiding Rose over to an empty portion of the massive garden and gesturing to the freshly turned over earth. “We should have some pretty daffodils once March rolls around.”

“Well, I hope you’re not completely done gardening.” Now or never, Lalonde. “I brought something for you.”

Jade’s bright eyes were suddenly focused on her like lasers as Rose pulled out a handful of seed packets from her pocket. “Oh! For me?”

“Yes, well, I saw these and knew you were planning to expand your garden.” She said as though it had been a spur of the moment decision, not the result of meticulous research.

“Ooh, I love peonies! And carnations…” Jade looked at the packets and giggled when she saw the packet of rose seeds. “Rose, you didn’t get this one just because it’s your name, right?”

“Lies and slander. I’ll have you know I put a lot of thought and consideration into selecting these flowers. If one just so happens to be my namesake, it is purely coincidental.”

“Uh-huh.” Jade laughed. “I guess I should just be glad you didn’t get me a jade plant or something.”

“The thought did cross my mind.” Rose said, lips quirking when Jade snorted. “No, I really did put some thought into this. How much do you know about plant meanings?”

“A little! Why? Are you getting into plant meanings?” Jade asked curiously.

“Weren’t you and John the ones who said I needed a new hobby?” 

“Well, I guess this is an improvement from trying to summon demons in the band room.” Jade teased.

“It would not have been the first demon that school has seen.” That made Jade snicker, and Rose took the moment to take the seed packets back. “According to ancient Greek folklore, peonies represent compassion. Carnations symbolize love. And roses, as many know, are for romance.” 

Rose refused to look up at Jade while she spoke, instead pretending to inspect the planting instructions on the back of the peony packet. Jade was silent beside her, then slowly took the seed packets from Rose’s hands. “And… you’re giving them to me? With the meanings in mind?”

“I also had your garden in mind. I know you’ve been aiming to plant more flowers around the perimeter, and-” Rose deflected, but she was cut off by a sudden kiss on her cheek. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates when she turned to stare at Jade. Jade’s grin was a mile wide.

“This was a really sweet gift, thank you, Rose.” 

“Yes. Well.” Rose’s brain was short circuiting. Jade laughed softly and took Rose’s hand.

“I, uh. I kind of suspected you liked me? But I never knew for sure, so I was just gonna wait until you made it clear.” She squeezed Rose’s hand. “I’ve liked you for a really long time, you know, but I didn’t want to mess things up!”

“You have no idea how much I understand that.” Rose breathed out a sigh of relief. “Jade Harley, my friend of ten years, crush of eight, would you do me the honor of being my girlfriend?”

“I would love that.” Jade grinned, then blinked as what she said registered. “Wait, how long?”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s plant these peonies.”

Jade was the girl next-door, no longer a mystery, but Rose was just as enamored as she had been that very first day.


End file.
